Bernd Koenemann

OPMISR: the foundation for compressed ATPG vectors

Rapid increases in the wire-able gate counts of ASICs stress existing manufacturing test equipment in terms of test data volume and test capacity. Techniques are presented in this paper that allow for substantial compression of Automatic Test Pattern Generation (ATPG) produced test vectors. We show compression efficiencies allowing a more than 10-fold reduction in tester scan buffer data volume on ATPG compacted tests. In addition, we obtain almost a 2/spl times/ scan test time reduction. By implementing these techniques for production testing of huge-gate-count ASICs, IBM will continue using existing automated test equipment (ATE)-avoiding costly upgrades and replacements.

A SmartBIST variant with guaranteed encoding

SmartBIST is a name for a family of streaming scan test pattern decoders that are suitable for on-chip integration. The automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) algorithms are modified to generate scan test stimulus vectors in a highly compacted source format that is compatible with the SmartBIST decoder hardware. The compacted stimulus vectors are streamed from automatic test equipment (ATE) to the decoder, which expands the data stream in real-time into fully expanded scan test vectors. SmartBIST encoding and decoding use simple algebraic techniques similar to those used for LFSR-coding (also known as LFSR-reseeding). The specific SmartBIST implementation shown in this paper guarantees that all test cubes can be successfully encoded by the modified ATPG algorithm irrespective of the number and position of the care bits.

Extending OPMISR beyond 10/spl times/ scan test efficiency

Rapidly increasing ASIC gate counts are stressing the test capacity of manufacturing test equipment. New on-product multiple-input signature register (OPMISR) techniques compress test vectors produced by ATPG, substantially reducing data volume and test time.

P1500-CTL: Towards a Standard Core Test Language

As part of the IEEE standardization activities of P1500, a language is being defined for embedded core test to enable the reuse of intellectual property in a system on a chip environment. A Core Test Description Language (CTL) is being proposed as an industry standard method for capturing and expressing test related information for reusable cores. This paper discusses the scope of the standardization activity.

Testable programmable digital clock pulse control elements

Digital clock pulse control elements - delay lines and pulse-shaping elements - are used widely for clock generation and clock tuning in synchronous digital logic. However, they are intrinsically redundant circuits: without special modifications, DC logic testing cannot completely verify their static behavior (including the correct operation of the decoders and selectors used for their programming and control). This paper demonstrates low overhead circuit modification techniques that can be applied to all classes of programmable clock control elements, ensuring their complete single stuck-at fault testability.<<ETX>>